Category Archives: Work & Money

It’s been a rough couple days around here and you can tell… You can tell the second you walk into my house and it’s dark and gloomy and nothing looks clean at all (even though we’ve been cleaning every single day) and it just looks like a house filled with sadness and stress. Frankly, because that’s exactly what this house is filled with right now. And I’m really really hating it….

The first thing that’s all out of whack is our financial situation and neither The Boyfriend or I can figure out how it’s going as wrong as it is. Back before we moved into this place, the house that is now dubbed “Gilchrist”, we were paying $300 more a month in rent, we were spending our money on a lot more stupid stuff like video games and movies and general electronics, we were paying a lot more where bills and utilities were concerned and somehow we managed to not always be hurting for money. I mean yes, we had our months, but it wasn’t like this where it seems to be constant.

Now, we’re paying $300 less, we’re no longer buying movies because we have Netflix, The Boyfriend hasn’t bought a video game that couldn’t be found in the cheap bin since we moved in here (oh, now that I think about it, one game new), and we have one less utility bill and the bills that we are getting are cheaper than they were in the other house. We have spent the last few weeks trying to see where we’re going wrong and the only thing that keeps coming to mind is the cost of our groceries.

With all the kids getting bigger and having fuller days, we’ve noticed that we’re spending about $100 more per week on groceries. And yes, there are a few things that The Boyfriend and I could cut down on big time, such as smoking and the amount of Sprite that I’m drinking or the number of store-bought coffees we could be getting, so yes, there are changes that can still be made to remedy this financial situation, but we can’t figure out what we’re doing wrong or differently from Gilchrist. And it’s bringing both of us down a lot.

For him, he feels nothing but guilt. He loves his job so much, he really does. I don’t think you’ll ever meet a Wal-Mart employee who has so much pride in his work and who loves working for that company as much as The Boyfriend does. But, he’s not getting paid enough to be able to support this big family of ours, he’s just not, not by himself anyways. And he feels incredibly guilty about that. He feels guilty because he can’t be a better provider while keeping this job that he loves and while I constantly remind him that I’d rather him be happy at a job than make tons of money, he still feels inadequate.

For me, I just keep thinking that I need to get back to work but right now it’s so damn hard. The big thing that’s standing in my way when it comes to returning to the workforce is a daycare. With my Mom working, she can’t really be relied on to watch the kids and even if she could, it could only be for 21 days out of the month because of her partner’s job. Getting them into a daycare facility or into a dayhome program, not only involves tons of waiting on waiting lists, but also costs a whole heck of a lot of money and if you didn’t catch it from all my ranting before, money is so damn tight right now that just thinking about having to throw out all that money is a hugely overwhelming shock to my system that I’m just avoiding thinking about it at all…

There also comes the issue of Keirnan and his half school days. If I were to get a job and couldn’t take the time off at lunch to get him to school, how would he get there? He wouldn’t, and as it is with how often he’s been sick or how often he’s had to stay home because Carter or I was too sick to walk him, the schools already calling about all his missed days… Just the whole thought of me going back to work right now is such a huge stressor and yet, I sincerely don’t think we’ll last too many more months with our crappy financial situation. It’s kind of like, I need a job or we’re completely screwed…

Then, we’re still dealing with all this Child Services stuff. Not technically Child Services anymore but that stuff. So, Child Services came in (as I’ve told you before) and even though the report that was filed against us was proven to be false on the very first day, the lady decided we still needed a little help as parents. After a few more interviews with her and a lot of being told that we simply weren’t doing a good enough job in her eyes, we were referred to a parenting program with another lady. I still don’t know exactly how I feel about it. One day I’ll think it’s a great idea and that The Boyfriend and I could use some help with some of the problems that we’re having with the kids and as parents. I mean, how many times do I vent to you guys all about how annoyed I am by the kids? That’d be nice not to do anymore. But then the next day, I’ll think that I really don’t need that kind of help when it comes to parenting and that I want the chance to figure it out on my own and that I stopped going to all the parenting programs I was a part of for a reason and those reasons still exist today. It’s a confusing time for my brain.

But, we really have no choice. If we don’t go to this program, our Child Services file will stay open and I fear that eventually, they won’t be nice about things anymore and eventually they’ll just take my kids and I absolutely do not want that. So, I concede to their wishes, no matter how much I fight with myself about it, because it’s necessary. So, I had my first appointment last Thursday and this Friday, The Boyfriend and I go for the first real assessment of our family… And I’m just not looking forward to it.

Firstly, because a lot of it will be discussing Alfie… We chose Kaeidyn as the kid we were going to focus on, because her and I just can’t seem to get along very well. We’re always arguing, our attitudes are always colliding and we’re both so stubborn that we don’t get anywhere with each other. At our first meeting, we discussed a little bit about our break-in awhile back and how that was a traumatic experience for her and then, her Dad got brought up. This is always such a sensitive subject for all of us, not just her. I mean, Alfie was a really toxic influence in our lives and easily was a traumatic experience for us all. The boys are all too young to really remember what it was like with him, but not Kaeidyn…

And the worst part is, is even though Alfie is hardly present at all in their lives anymore (save for the holidays and his birthday apparently), he still has such a massive effect on them. For instance, Kaeidyn has an email address and she uses it to send messages to her grandparents, sign up for computer game accounts and mostly, check in with her Dad. For awhile, he was responding to her as fast as he could and things were going really well. Then, he called and said he would start paying child support to us directly now that he had gotten this great paying job. Month one went by without a hitch and then the next month, he asked if he could not pay one week so that he could come and see the kids. I’ve always told him that to me, it’s more important to have him around than it is to have his money. And up until recently, we were doing fine without his money. So, I said yes to not paying that week so he could come see the kids.

That weekend went by and he never came to see them, never called and never sent any money. Kaeidyn had been emailing him non-stop during this time. Asking when he was coming down, asking how his day was going, just constantly with the emails. Not once did he respond. The kids got to see him last weekend, not because he paid money for it and not because he went out of his way to make sure he got to see them, but because his family did. Here he is, bragging about the new phone he got and the new this and that that he got, and still, Kaeidyn’s been emailing him, and there’s been no response. No one knows how to get in touch with him, he hasn’t called here in weeks and Kaeidyn can definitely tell that The Boyfriend and I are having some major freaking problems surrounding Alfie. We’re both beyond pissed at him.

I can’t stop beating myself up for ever choosing such a loser to be the father of 3 out of 4 of my kids, The Boyfriend can’t stop being angry that any dad can just “abandon” (his words, not mine) his kids like this and we’re both just not dealing well with this whole Alfie situation. And guaranteed, it’s going to get brought up over and over again in these parenting program appointments of ours and it’s just a great big stress that I would much rather not deal with. We’re just not having a good couple of days…

Alright, so I officially suck at blogging everyday, it’s just impossible. And yesterday, there were so many opportunities and I just could not force myself to write anything. I had absolutely no motivation. This is something I’m going to be exploring with a passion over the next few days, because I can’t keep doing this to myself. I can’t keep letting every single goal I ever make for myself slip through my fingers, especially when it’s something I enjoy doing…

Plus, I’m never going to get anywhere that I want to be if I just continue to get discouraged or whatever you want to call it. I am in one heck of a funk though. This thing has got a vicious grip on me and all day yesterday and all day today, I have just felt completely boggled down by whatever this negative emotion is that I’m feeling at the moment. It’s not even really any particular feeling, just a general blah-ness.

I’m not sure exactly what’s causing this. I know part of today’s funk has to do with the fact that it was supposed to be The Boyfriend’s day off and then he ended up getting called into work bright and early this morning because night crew didn’t do their jobs. I would’ve been less upset about it if it weren’t for the fact that they had been dicking him around in general over this day off for the last two weeks, constantly changing when it would be and constantly changing how many days it would be, that it was annoying that they had finally gotten it figured out and then I get woken up this morning to a phone call for him to come in on his day off. I was not impressed…

But the day, for the most part, has been overall decent. Yes, there’s been moments of getting angered with the kids or moments of laughter, such as – we downloaded a whole bunch of game demos because The Boyfriend got a hard drive. One of the games we downloaded was Just Dance 4 for the kids and it was just about the cutest thing watching Kenzie and Kaeidyn try to nail these dance moves. It’s been a day like any other basically.

I hate that school is already starting again. I definitely don’t feel prepared at all. I was hoping to go to the laundromat before school started, I was planning on having so much more of the house completely cleaned. We’ve had each area of the house completely cleaned at one point or another, but keeping it that way seems physically impossible. And that’s only because my energy levels are at an absolute minimum – or else it wouldn’t be that impossible.

And that’s another thing that I really need to figure out. How to get my energy levels up, because I just feel exhausted and un-motivated all the time. I don’t want to do anything or go anywhere or move. I just want to stay in one spot… I feel incredibly lazy and I hate it. I mean, obviously I’m not just staying in one spot or not doing anything, because that’s definitely impossible, but I’m not doing all that I want to be doing.

Darn this winter thing. I swear, if it were summer, I would not be going through all these whiny days and nothing but complaints. I hate this weather and I hate the lack of sunshine and I hate that I can’t kick the kids outside to play… I’m just pissy…

I woke up this morning, feeling pretty darn good. It was relatively easy to get up before noon (seems like it’s always easier when The Boyfriend is home from work), I spent the first few hours playing a new game that The Boyfriend got for the computer – Star Trek Online and let me say one thing, addictive!! After spending too many hours on it last night, the first thing I wanted to do today was play it again.

Then, after playing for a couple hours today, I got up and did some dishes and light cleaning, which made me feel really great. I’ve done a load of dishes every single day this week and I feel mighty good about it. I even discovered that I can have Grooveshark playing on my BlackBerry, so even had tunes playing out in the kitchen while the kids quietly sat and watched SpongeBob. It was wonderful.

Out of nowhere, I start feeling annoyed and frustrated. The kids are all being relatively decent. Sure, there’s always points of this kid being more frustrating at this time than any other, but for the most part, it was all manageable and fine. Kaeidyn and I started watching a movie together, the boys were doing their thing and yet, I just could not shake this annoyed and frustrated feeling.

I figured watching a couple movies would get me over it, but if anything, it seems like it’s just made it worse. The Boyfriend suggested I try the computer and see if that brightens my mood any, so, here we sit…

I can’t figure out, for the life of me, why I feel so frustrated and annoyed right now. I’m accomplishing tons, I’m really enjoying this time off from dealing with school stuff, The Boyfriend and I are starting to get interested in each other’s stuff again (we go in and out of enjoying one another’s hobbies), so we’re talking lots and generally having a lot of fun with each other. Money’s a little tight, but we expected that coming into January (like it goes every year), so it’s not like we’re stressing about anything at this point. And even with all those positive little factoids staring right at me, in type and everything, I just can’t stop these all-consuming feelings.

I start blogging everyday on the 1st. I’m incredibly excited about it and also a little nervous. Maybe that’s part of what’s got my goat, who knows. I’m mostly nervous about it because I’ve gotten more and more likely to stop writing a post right in the middle when I start thinking that it sucks and then never returning to it to make it better. My drafts folder is literally boggled down with posts that are 5 or 6 sentences long, that I just leave there…

But I miss feeling that creativity and inspiration that I feel when I write on a regular basis. When I had a paper and pen journal, I had no problem checking in on it multiple times a day with numerous little writings here and there. Maybe it’s because I didn’t care if it was only 6 sentences long and sucked, so maybe I’ll just adopt that for this challenge. We’ll see how it goes…

I’m also probably feeling a little bit stressed because of my brother, who is yet again, crazy. I mean, there’s really no other way to put it. He was doing so darn good, then this roommate moved in and now all hell has broken loose. My Mom has said she’s done, and I can’t blame her at all. But now that she’s gotten mad at him so many times (and he’s too scared to go over there, just like he’s too scared to go back to his own house), he just comes over here all the time. And even though Mom and I set up a different place for him to stay, with more people who he likes, he still insists on spending what seems like every second of his spare time here.

It’s tough because you can only ask so many times for him to stop talking to himself or so many times for him to stop leaving random crap that he finds all over the house, before you just start feeling an immense amount of anger. It just feels like he has absolutely no respect. And I know that’s not really what it’s like but sometimes it’s hard to forget about your feelings and feel compassion. But it’s also hard to feel any compassion towards a person when they could be doing something to get help (for a problem they are aware that they have nonetheless), and are downright refusing to do so. And I seriously don’t know why he doesn’t get help…

So, that’s where I’m at. Still feeling the same way I did before I started to right this. Hopefully cuddles with The Boyfriend tonight will help 😉

I’ve discovered why I don’t listen to podcasts.. I simply cannot multitask. I can’t pay attention to what’s being said and also do other things. See tonight, The Boyfriend brought me home a gift that was supposed to be for my birthday but he couldn’t get it until now. I got a BlackBerry PlayBook!!!

So I’m sitting here listening to a podcast and trying to read a couple books that I downloaded, but I think it’s impossible. Especially being that I’m incredibly interested in this podcast.

I’ve only recently started listening to podcasts… Very recently! It started with The Gloria Brame Show, which I officially love. Dr. Brame is kinda my idol (one of many). But tonight, after years of having it on my to-listen-to list, I finally gave a dedicated listen to Savage Love and I think I’ve found another podcast I need to start listening to on a regular basis.

I was surprised at how into the podcast I was getting but even more than that, I was taken aback by how into The Boyfriend was getting. He doesn’t usually pay much attention to anything I do on any device so it was a nice little change. I spent most of the night subscribing to podcasts that I’ve heard about over the years and plan to spend most of today sifting through those.

In other news, I had gotten an infection in one of my teeth last week, which isn’t altogether uncommon for me. First, I’m a smoker. My teeth are just bad because of it. Then, my back teeth (can’t remember what they’re called, either the molars or wisdom teeth) are trying to come in but there’s no room for them. So, I spent all last week with an incredibly sore mouth. Then The Boyfriend and I had sex and the pain went away. Imagine my total excitement.

But then, I woke up yesterday and instead of feeling no pain, the infection has just moved to the other side of my mouth. My face is all swollen and I’m sleeping horribly because of all this pain. I need to go see a dentist but right now we just can’t figure out how to make it work financially. Lately though, I’ve been wondering if that’s true, or if I’m just so scared that I’m making excuses.

I’ve always hated the dentist. Doctors, surgeons, never been scared of them, but dentists, deathly afraid. I start packing the second they take the x-rays. And while you can now do the whole sedation thing, I do worry a lot about the cost of all that. Just in general, I’m worried.

Something is also going on with my neck and I’ve had probably 3 days now of this intense and nagging pain. It’s making my head hurt constantly and no amount of tylenol seems to be helping. It’s making me more grumpy than I’ve been in a long time…

I’m just so sick and tired of feeling like I’m falling apart. Every time I start thinking that I’m feeling better or healthier, something turns around and bites me in the ass. I feel like it’s taking its toll on me entirely. I don’t even feel like myself anymore…

I don’t feel like I’m in a good way today… Hell, I don’t feel like I’ve been in a good way for weeks now. First of all, I’m re-sick again. I began feeling better, I was finally able to breathe through my nose and I was just dealing with a cough and then I woke up two days ago with my throat absolutely scratching away and my nose all runny again. And it’s happening to everyone.

Kaeidyn was up half the night last night coughing and growling through her stuffed nose, keeping The Boyfriend awake. He’s now into the constant headaches part of this cold and Kenzie woke up this morning hacking his lungs out. Carter has had a non-stop runny/stuffed nose for a good couple of weeks now. But I’m most pissed that I’ve restarted this cold.

I don’t do well with colds. They make all of me hurt. I can’t sleep properly at night, I can’t wake up properly during the day, I can’t function like a normal person when I’m sick. And don’t even get me started on how much I’m not functioning and how much that’s bringing me completely down. I feel myself just wanting to sleep my entire life away and apparently that’s what I’ve been trying to achieve.

But I am downright exhausted… I think the earliest I’ve gone to bed in the last few weeks was around 1 AM. Last night, I was up until way after 3 in the morning, just tossing and turning. Other nights, I stay awake listening to all the sounds in the house. Other nights, I just lay there awake and cannot finally sleep. Finally, I guess, exhaustion consumes me and I eventually fall asleep – hours and hours after everyone has already fallen asleep.

By the time the alarm goes off at 6:30, I’m just starting to actually get into a deep sleep. So I sleep through The Boyfriend’s alarm. He resets it for 7:30 and that’s when the kids are supposed to wake up to get ready for school – though every morning but today, they’re normally up way before that. I’ve been staying in bed when they wake up, half awake, half asleep and make sure they grab everything they need for school. Then after they leave, I tend to fall right back to sleep to catch up on the hours of sleep that I’ve missed. And it’s a terrible habit…

Today, I woke up earlier than usual because the kids were all getting into candy, they were all being loud and rambunctious, and the phone would not stop ringing. The second I sat up in bed, I just felt today being the world’s crappiest day. The Boyfriend called from work and broke more bad news to me and now I can’t stop feeling like I’m on the verge of crying. I don’t want to move and I just want to go back to sleep…

I am just so tired of this life not being kind to me. Every time I think that things are starting to get better for us in anyway, the universe has to bring me back down to reality and remind me that apparently, things are never going to start getting better for us. It’s pissing me off a lot. We were so excited about the big chunk of money we’d be saving in bills and rent when we moved into this place and so far, we’re not seeing that change at all. Somehow, our money is lasting less time. And while a small portion of that can be accounted for in extra food expenditures (since our kids are always hungry), I just don’t know where the rest of it’s going.

There is literally too much that I can whine about. I was doing good keeping the house clean and then this cold hit and now I can’t seem to bring myself to want to do any cleaning whatsoever. Like I said, I just want to sleep… I look around the house and automatically feel exhausted and automatically have to force myself not to just climb back into bed. Things are just not going good for me…

This morning was one of the best, when all the kids woke up early this morning and I was not in anyway wanting to get out of the bed. The Boyfriend, who hasn’t done this in awhile, got up with them and kept them quiet so that I could sleep in. It was definitely nice and very much appreciated, even though I still feel absolutely exhausted.

I’ve been awake for about two hours now and I feel like I’ve already had a very long day. First, I turn on music and jump on Facebook and I just have so much different varying opinions on there that I leave Facebook feeling incredibly confused. I mean, we’ve got pictures with the galaxy and one little spec on it, “You are here. So don’t worry so much” kind of thing and then we’ve got another picture two seconds later, saying something about how Armageddon is coming and we need to be worried and that’s just blaring. It’s about everything on there too, not just the end of the world kind of stuff. Relationships, politics, religion, cultures. And it’s so much freaking noise.

Then, I jump over to Twitter and see all these people who are my idols (in an online sense) and I start clicking links and begin thinking that everything about my online stuff needs to change, and that just makes me angry. It’s like losing weight for me. I know what it’s going to take to get there, but I can’t bring myself to do it. It makes me wonder how serious I am about it and then I spend so much of my day stressing out about it.

Man, am I ever rambling today… I just have a lot of stuff on my mind. And I still have to get the oomph up to clean today… Blargh!!

These last couple of weeks have been pure, unadulterated, mind-numbing, heart-wrenching hell! I know it’s been awhile since I last wrote, and I apologize profusely for it, but it’s only been in the last two days that I’ve started feeling at all ready to write again. I’ve spent many days processing and analyzing my feelings, coming up with pages and pages worth of plans, and figuring out and preparing to begin putting my plans in motion. It’s been trying to say the least.

In my last post, I had mentioned about the landlord’s inspection of the unit. I decided not to be there when the landlord did his walkthrough because I was in no way prepared to hear what he had to say. The next day, child services showed up at our door and found our house to be in a “deplorable” condition. Even if we had gotten back up to 100% clean, because of that toilet they still would’ve deemed it deplorable. They asked if the kids could go stay with my Mom and the real fun (sarcasm) began.

It was horrible timing to say the least as Chef was just coming home from his 21-day work stint and his parents were coming into town and my Mom already had my sister’s 2 kids visiting her. The Boyfriend was heading off to Calgary for his training the day after this all happened, which I struggled to not resent him for. And all four kids and I went to stay at my Mom’s. Thank goodness for her and Chef honestly, because I don’t know what would’ve happened without them.

I called around and was able to get our move-in date bumped up, which was more of a gong show than I had expected it to be. After spending the most horrible week and a bit at my Mom’s place, being lectured every single day about how I could be a better parent, even though my parenting was never in question, my housekeeping skills and state of mind were, we finally moved into our new place. And let me tell you, I love it!!

I wouldn’t in anyway say that it’s my dream house, though Kaeidyn would. All the bedrooms are upstairs, there’s 1.5 baths and my kitchen sink looks out the window to the backyard! It’s a thousand times bigger than our last place and there are no carpets in the entire house, which makes sweeping after meals that much easier. We’re still working on getting all the furniture and appliances we need, which will probably take at least another month or more, but everyone has a place to sleep, even The Boyfriend and I have a mattress, and we’re not dying of boredom.

I’ve also been doing magnificently on cleaning every single day. I wake up and do the load of dishes from the night before’s midnight snack, while I’m making lunch I sweep and mop the kitchen floor and do any other dishes that may have been used for the kids’ breakfast and lunch dishes get done while I’m making dinner. I’ve never lived in a cleaner kitchen! Now it’s just a matter of keeping up on it.

The kids are also liking the clean start and Kaeidyn has created herself an entire weeks worth of schedules to ensure her room stays clean. Luckily, we got rid of so many toys when we left the other place, so we haven’t yet had an issue with a mess that way. Mostly just lots of dishes, sweeping and mopping. All the kids even help with the laundry, which I think is going to be the only real issue here, at least until we get a proper washer and dryer. Right now, we have a small apartment-sized dryer that only dries about 5 articles of clothing at a time, which doesn’t work too well when Kaeidyn alone has that many dirty clothes at the end of a day. But we’re making it work until we can afford a bigger dryer.

I’ve been spending the time that I’m not cleaning, creating calendars and schedules and to-do lists to try and ensure that we stay on top of things around here. I really don’t want to end up in a house like the last one and I’m determined to make sure it doesn’t happen around here. If it means I dedicate my life to nothing but cleaning, than that’s what I’ll do. I don’t have any other choice. The first few days here almost felt like I was starting a new blog with all the planning and preparing.

The Boyfriend is starting to feel really stressed out about work-related stuff, which means he comes home in an off mood, which sets me into an off mood. He desperately wants to get promoted simply so that he doesn’t have to work so hard and it seems like he’s being used and abused and stretched completely thin at work. It’s hard to know how to support him during this, other than listening to his rants about his job. I have a hard time not voicing my strong-headed opinions about how he should stand up for himself and stop letting them push him around and it’s even harder, because he’s not that kind of guy. He’s a people-pleaser through and through and doesn’t want to disappoint his higher ups. He carries the weight of his work (and everybody else’s) on his shoulders.

So, that’s essentially what’s been going down around here. It’s been a lot of stress, a lot of tears, a lot of reinventing (if that’s what you want to call it…) and we’re looking forward to not being in this rut anymore.

Post navigation

Visit VALERIERAYNE.COM

I have a lot of anxiety surrounding late-term ultrasounds, and this one made me feel like I was absolutely justified in having those anxieties! The post The Late-Term Ultrasound appeared first on Valerie Rayne.

It is ridiculous to me how much anxiety making grown-up phone calls gives me. When I have to call and book a doctors appointment, it's like full-out exhaustion-inducing stress. The post And… Cue Panic Attack appeared first on Valerie Rayne.

As we near the end of this pregnancy (only 9 weeks left!), here's the things I hope will end when this pregnancy does! The post Things I Hope Will End When This Pregnancy Does appeared first on Valerie Rayne.